Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed
by procrastin8or951
Summary: Don has always wanted to be the boss, the man, but even our greatest dreams can start to wear on us if we live them alone. After the break-up with Liz, Don starts to cave under the pressure. But he knows better than most how to play through the pain.
1. Chapter 1

**Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed**

**Chapter One**

Before it ever happened, he knew he would feel guilty. He felt the guilt preemptively, but even through the sick feeling of it gnawing at him, he did it anyway.

It was a simple matter of timing. When you come home from a rollercoaster day that consisted of adrenaline rushes so intense they left him both nauseated and exhilarated at the highest points, and at the lowest points an anxiety so sharp he sometimes forgot to breathe until he became lightheaded – after days like that, all he wanted to do was sprawl on his couch with a beer and whatever sport happened to be in season. At most, he might go to Charlie's house to wind down – mooching off his brother's beer and capitalizing on his technical "guest" status to hijack the remote control. He might, after his brother was long asleep, discuss with his dad a few rough-sketch, lie-about-the-details explanations about why his hands were still trembling just enough to be noticeable, why he had barely been able to choke down two bites of the pizza they had saved for him. But that was all he was capable of, on his most communicative of days.

The last thing he wanted to do after most days of work, and especially most days of work lately, was come home to rehash the whole situation with Liz. After an old girlfriend was brutally murdered and numerous people outright said to him what he had already suspected – that he had as good as killed her – all he wanted was a little comfort. He wanted her to tell him that Charlie's math was right, it wasn't his fault, that he was a good agent and he didn't screw up as bad as he thought he might have. The last thing he wanted to do was go through an interrogation that would have been more appropriate had he been handcuffed on the other side of that mirrored glass than it was when he was sitting shirtless on the edge of his bed, having been caught in a barrage of accusatory questions on his way to wash away the sweat of a hard day.

The problem, he mused, was actually quite simple. The job was too intense. And though no one wanted to admit it, the job made it almost impossible to maintain a real relationship. Because at the end of the day, for civilians, he had to lie and say it was all okay. Charlie and his dad were the closest he came to honesty, and Charlie didn't know the half of it and his dad knew even less. But to be in a relationship, one has to be honest, or so his shrink continued to insist. So by way of ruling out civilians, it would seem the best option would be another agent. But the problem there, one that he wanted to kick his own ass for not predicting, was that Liz was just as stressed and just as pained as he was at the end of the day. At the end of the day, she was upset that she found out about his dinner with an ex this way, and that would be enough to deal with if it wasn't for the fact that this particular ex was dead, and that this wasn't the first time this had happened and he was already starting to wonder if he wasn't the kiss of death, literally, and he simply wasn't able to explain anything to her satisfaction because in his head all the accusations, doubts, and the grief were swirling and it was all he could do just to say "I'm sorry." And the worst part of it all – and this anyone would have told him if he had listened, but of course, he's the boss, so he doesn't have to listen to anyone – the worst part is that he is still her boss and she has to respect and trust him, and so when it gets down to it, he has to let her lean on him and he can't lean back. Because if he were to tell her that he's scared sometimes, that sometimes he isn't certain, and that those thoughts keep him up at night because he is sure someday his uncertainty will cost someone their life, if he were to tell her any of it, she would question his leadership from that moment on. In every order he gave her, she would recognize the fear. So he couldn't tell her.

Don had realized all of this quite a while ago. Sometime between the death of the first ex and the second, he had realized this was simply too much. It was too much baggage between too few people, and he wasn't strong enough to carry all of it. And he tried to tell her. He really did. It was just that no matter how much he prepared himself, rehearsed what he was going to say, he got three words in before his words were muffled and cut off as she kissed him roughly. And he knew where it was going, and he knew why, and he knew he would feel guilty and he let it happen anyway. She'd start to unbutton his shirt, so fast she sometimes accidentally removed them, she'd wrestle with his belt buckle, and she'd pull off her own clothes. And they'd have sex, the kind of sex borne from two people needing to quiet the demons, to exhaust their bodies so thoroughly that they could do nothing after but collapse into dreamless sleep, muscles wrought with remaining tension.

And that's exactly what Liz did. But when it was all over, Don would lie awake, thoughts louder than ever, the guilt itching beneath his skin, until he would finally get up. Lying next to her felt wrong. It felt like leading her on, although he supposed not sleeping next to her without her knowledge was a lot less like leading her on than having sex with her when he was trying to break up with her. But he was working on that, and this at least he could help right now. And he would pace about the room, body aching with exhaustion, thoughts on repeat as he kept interrupting himself with the same old ideas because at this point he was too tired to even complete a thought. There was only one whole thought, and it kept coming back, over and over again: I can't do this.

By the time he actually broke up with her, this had been going on for weeks. And when he actually finally said those words, it was easier than he expected. She left. There was no talk, no tears, no begging or pleading. Perfectly civil, perfectly calm. Yet he lay awake that night, alone in his dark apartment, going over it all in his head, dreading the next day, wondering why she didn't ask why, wondering how long she had known this was coming and kept putting it off anyway. By the time he fell asleep, it was five thirty in the morning, and his alarm went off at six. At which point he dragged himself out of bed, showered, skipped breakfast and drove to work.

Everyone kept asking if he was okay. It makes him think, once again, that this is the price of being the boss, of being the man, because just once he'd like to say "No, I'm not okay. I haven't slept through the night in over a month, I keep forgetting to eat and sometimes I just want to choose a direction and drive until the road ends or until I'm so far away that I can't remember where I came from." But being the boss means you can't say anything like that. So he deflected and told them to do their jobs and he went on with his.


	2. Chapter 2

**Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed**

**Chapter Two**

"Don, maybe you should go home," Megan said hesitantly.

"I'm fine," Don snapped, glaring at her and scribbling his signature on yet another form.

"You look terrible," she responded flatly. Don caught Colby and David sneaking glances over at them and he stared them down before turning back to Megan.

"Thanks for the opinion, but I didn't ask. I'm fine." He realized just a second too late how rude he actually sounded as Megan raised her eyebrows. "I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I just didn't get enough sleep last night. Nothing serious." He forced a smile and stood up, muttering something about getting some more coffee.

Once he made it to the safety of the break room, he slumped into a chair. He did not actually want coffee – his stomach was already roiling and despite eating Tums like candy it still felt like acid was eating its way through his insides. Not to mention he had already had about six cups today because that line about not getting enough sleep was not just a line. It had been a good six weeks since he had slept more than about three hours in a night and it was starting to make him slightly upset. Not only that, but his head was pounding, his throat was aching, and everyone in the office kept asking if he was all right because he was pale as death, and it was making him angry. And if that weren't enough, Megan was hovering over him and he had a very solid suspicion that she had already placed a call to his dad or Charlie. Somehow, just because Charlie occasionally worked with them and they had all been to his house and met his dad, they all thought they could tell on Don to his family whenever they wanted. But he was not a child and he didn't have to listen to his dad or Charlie either.

Sighing, he dragged himself out of the chair and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, carrying it back to his desk. He had at least three more reports to get through before he could even think about going home, and that was only if nothing else urgent called, paged, or ended up on his desk. He hadn't had a day off in two weeks, which was starting to feel like an eternity. Don was not one to complain, but a guy could only be shot at so many days in a row before he started to get a little testy. And he had crossed that line about six days ago.

He would take a couple days off, he decided. He was clearly coming down with something – he was not naïve enough to think all of his symptoms meant nothing, though he did resent the fact that everyone in his office seemed to think they could invade his personal, medical issues at a whim. Maybe after a couple days he would have kicked whatever this was and he could get back to working at full effect. Because if he was being honest with himself, he hadn't been working that well today, or really any time lately. At least right now he was only doing desk work. His reports were basically complete driveling crap, but at least no one really read those things anyway. But when it came to hunting down suspects, clearing a scene or anything involving pointing a gun in the appropriate direction, he was feeling less and less inclined to trust himself.

He swung by the ADIC's office on his way back to his desk via a very circuitous route. He explained he seemed to be coming down with something and before he could insist that it wasn't just an excuse, the ADIC waved him out of the office with an approved day off, already reaching for a can of Lysol. Don surmised that he must look even worse than he had initially thought.

Settling in behind his desk with the prospect of twenty-four hours of work-free time in front of him, the reports were significantly less daunting. Perhaps the words were swimming on the page just a little, but he powered through, signing off paperwork from his team and writing his own reports until his hands began to cramp from typing. He paused briefly, leaning back in his chair and stretching, the tense muscles in his back and shoulders declining to cooperate.

"Here." A sandwich wrapped tightly in plastic was set in front of his keyboard. He blinked up at Megan who crinkled her brow worriedly at him. "You missed lunch and I haven't seen you eat all day."

He wanted to tell her that it wasn't really any of her business if he ever ate again, but he recognized his own crankiness in time to hold his tongue and convince himself she was just concerned. He smiled at her. "Thanks. Guess I didn't realize, with all that was going on today." He looked around, realizing it was dark outside the office, that it was already dinner time and his team was still there. "Guys, go home," he commanded. "Good work today." He almost grinned as David and Colby simultaneously stood up, things already packed up and ready for Don's order.

"See you, Don," Colby said, keys in hand as he and David headed towards the elevator. Don glanced over at Megan where she lounged at her own desk.

"I didn't mean to exclude you when I said 'guys,'" he said.

"I know. I thought I'd stick around here, see if I could help out at all, and make sure my sandwich doesn't go to waste." She looked pointedly at it. Maybe eating would settle his stomach; soak up some of the coffee. He unwrapped it and set to work on the last report, choking it down as he typed, finishing both almost simultaneously. He tossed the plastic into the trash and scribbled his signature on the printed report.

"There," he said with finality. "Now we can _both_ leave."

"See you tomorrow, boss," Megan said, patting his shoulder as they parted ways in the parking garage.

"I'm taking tomorrow off," Don replied. "So I'll see you the day after."

"Good for you," Megan said approvingly, heading for her car.

Don swung himself into his SUV, turning it on and hesitating for a moment. It had been a while since he had been over to Charlie's, but he didn't really want them to fuss over him, and based on one cursory glance in the rearview mirror, he realized if he set foot in that house, his dad would have him quarantined on bed rest before he could even take off his jacket. Home it was.

By the time he dragged himself up the stairs and into his apartment, Don was cursing the day sandwiches had been invented. It was all he could do not to double over in pain as his stomach protested. He shrugged out of his jacket, tossing it haphazardly in the direction of the couch, already unbuttoning his shirt as he walked. He shucked his shoes, socks and slacks and left them in a heap by the door, headed to the bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror for a long moment, taking in the purple smudges under his eyes and the unhealthy pallor to his sweaty skin. No wonder Megan had been hovering. He shook his head and immediately regretted it as he lurched for the toilet and vomited.

When it was over he lay on the floor for a few minutes praying this was just some twenty-four hour bug and that he'd be good as new after a day of sleep. When he thought God had probably heard enough of his complaining, he hauled himself off the floor and collapsed onto his bed, pulling the covers over his head as he began to shiver. He peeked one eye out from under the blankets just enough to locate the remote and turn on a hockey game, just enough to peer blearily at the screen as he cursed sandwiches, the flu, and whomsoever was responsible for his current condition. He mentally composed a list of possible candidates and resolved that he hated all of them. Everyone in his office except his own team, everyone at crime scenes this week, all of Charlie's students who could have passed the germs to Charlie and then to him.

But most of all he cursed the fact that he was alone. A few weeks ago, he would have had someone here to sit with him, and she probably would have complained about hockey but she would have stroked his hair and asked if there was anything she could do. And he would have told her that she should use his gun and just shoot him, but he would have been joking and she would have laughed and said "poor baby" and offered to do something else instead.

As it was, he laid in his bed, body aching in every place it touched the mattress and he kept shivering even though he was certain this room was probably not cold, and he watched a full hockey game and a couple of crime show reruns before he drifted into uneasy, lonely sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed**

**Chapter Three**

"Eppes."

"I need you to get down here. We've got a case."

"I thought I had today off."

"This can't wait. We've got a possible terrorist attack and there could be more in the works."

"I'll be there in fifteen."

* * *

Don squinted at the lit screen of his phone as he rubbed one hand over his eyes, trying to clear his vision enough to read the time. Three a.m. He'd gotten less than four hours of sleep. No wonder he still felt like shit. He pulled the covers down just enough to stick the top of his head out, eyes immediately glancing at the dark windows to verify what he already knew.

Making an executive decision, Don rolled out of bed as quickly as possible in the hopes that it would cause minimal disruption to his overall well-being. He was rewarded for his poor judgment with a run to bathroom to throw up once more, before taking a lukewarm shower because the time wasted being sick had to be made up somewhere. He pulled on jeans one-handedly as he brushed his teeth, reasoning it to be casual Friday, only to remember it was only Thursday. Well, damn it all, he thought, he wasn't supposed to be in the office today anyway. They're damn fortunate he didn't decide to show up in his boxers. He pulled a t-shirt over his head, shrugged into the warmest hoodie he owned, snagged his keys, gun, and phone from the nightstand, stepped into his shoes without lacing them and left.

He arrived in the bullpen exactly sixteen minutes after he hung up with the ADIC, greeting his somewhat bedraggled team with a "what've we got?" as he waved away Colby's offer of coffee.

"Five people reported to the ER yesterday with symptoms consistent with ricin poisoning," Megan said, pointing to government photos, presumably of the five victims, on the screen.

"Ricin, the biotoxin? As in the ricin letters sent to the White House?"

"Yeah," David replied. "Highly toxic and easily made. It looks like these people ingested it, which is probably why none have died yet."

"It takes at least twelve hours for the symptoms of ricin poisoning to show up," Colby added. "So by now…" he trailed off.

"Okay," Don said. "We need to know everything these people did in the last day. I'm talking who they talked to, where they went, if they bummed a cigarette from someone on the street, I want to know about it. Any of them well enough for interviews?"

"Emily Wyatt is conscious and so far is responding to treatment," Megan pointed to a picture of a redhead in her mid-twenties. "Carl Grogan and Dana Lifsey are experiencing hallucinations and seizures; we won't be able to talk to them. Elisa Simpson is sedated but expected to recover and," she paused. "Philip Chen isn't expected to make it through the night."

Don shook his head. "So we've got one interviewee. The others…talk to the families, friends, whoever was with them in the twenty-four hours before symptoms presented."

"We're on it, Don," Colby said, fitting a lid over his paper coffee cup and heading towards the door. "We'll call you as soon as we know anything." David followed Colby out, the two already making plans for splitting up the work.

Don redirected his attention to Megan. "Have we heard anything, any kind of demands or anyone trying to take credit?"

"Not a word," Megan said. "Fits the terrorist MO. They aren't looking to negotiate, they're looking to kill."

"Okay." Don sank into a chair, staring up at the screen. "Any commonalities between the victims jumping out at you?"

"Looks pretty random to me," Megan said. "Different areas, different incomes. Two white, one Hispanic, one Asian, one black. Three females, two males. At first glance, they don't seem to have a lot in common at all."

Don gazed at the pictures for a moment more before he said, "Let's check the homes, see if we can find anything there. ADIC is giving us some more guys to help out. We can send a team to each house and get this done quick."

* * *

Don and Megan arrived at Philip Chen's apartment after the longest half-hour drive of Don's life. After deflecting multiple probes into his health and well-being, Don finally snapped, resulting in a very long silence and many wounded looks shot in his direction. As Megan pulled the car up to the curb in front of the apartment building, Don finally sighed. "I'm sorry, okay?"

Megan smiled lightly. "Okay." Don broke into a long fit of coughing, doubling over. Megan placed a hand on his back, "Don, I'm worried about you."

Don straightened, panting. "As long as a scratchy throat isn't a symptom of ricin poisoning, I think I'll be okay."

Megan looked skeptical, but nevertheless dropped the subject as they marched up the stairs and rapped on the door. When there was no answer, Don knelt and picked the lock, standing up as the door swung open.

"Let me guess," Don said in a strangled voice. "Philip Chen is a college student?"

The apartment was lit only by various screens – the TV left on, a computer glowing in the corner. Surrounding one arm chair and one desk chair were the rubble of daily life minus the factor of occasional cleaning. Fast food bags and open food containers abounded, the trash looked like it had never been taken out, and judging by the heap of clothes in the corner, Don guessed that Chen was probably the type to buy new underwear instead of doing laundry.

Don backed away from the doorway, covering his mouth and nose as his stomach threatened to rebel. He took several deep breaths through his mouth and glanced up to find Megan staring at him again. "You okay? You ready?"

"Yeah," he said gruffly, forcing himself to enter the apartment. "Okay. We're looking for anything that may have been a way for Chen to ingest the ricin. Anything he may have eaten from and drank out of…" He trailed off looking around at all the containers. "And we are going to be here all day."

All day was a mild exaggeration, but "for the rest of the night" certainly wouldn't have been. The sun had long since risen before Don and Megan had sorted through everything, taking samples for testing and cataloguing each thing they found. Based on the various receipts they found in the heaps of rubble, they eliminated many things, but there was still plenty left to go.

"I think receipts are the way to go," Megan said. "If we could just find some kind of receipt indicating what he bought in the last week or so, that would narrow things down considerably."

"I was never this much of a mess in college," Don griped, pausing to lean heavily against the wall nearest the door, and thus, safety. "If he survives, I'm going to find him someone. No one needs to live like this."

"Some people just aren't neat," Megan shrugged. "Although, I'll admit, this takes it to a new, unhygienic level."

"It's a miracle he doesn't have bugs crawling all over this place. From the smell alone, he could be hiding a dead body and no one would ever know."

"Hey, look at this!" Megan held out a receipt found tucked deep into the chair. "Dated yesterday!"

Don moved forward to look at it, feeling his head spin as he lost contact with his support system. He took the receipt in one gloved hand and peered at it, waiting for his vision to clear.

"Convenience store, yesterday morning. Bottle of soda, chips, and beef jerky," he observed. "Guess it's something. We can check out this place." His stomach lurched suddenly. "I'm gonna take a quick break, take this out to the car and radio in for someone to head over there. I'll be back," he said in a rush even as he cleared the doorway and turned down the hall.

"Wait, take some of this with you!" he heard Megan call, but he ignored it as he walked as fast as he could, finally breaking into a run as he reached the bottom of the stairs, making it outside just in time to vomit in the bushes at the side of the building. He hadn't eaten today, so he was quickly reduced to dry heaves that just wouldn't seem to go away. When he finally began to regain a tiny bit of control over his body, he noticed a hand lightly patting his back.

"You're just everywhere, aren't you?" he said hoarsely, shakily wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Wordlessly, Megan handed him a bottle of water. He used some to rinse his mouth, spitting it into the grass, then took a cautious sip. "Thanks." She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off. "I know what you're going to say. And believe me, there is nothing I want more than to go back to my bed and stay there possibly until I die. But this case…we can't afford it."

"You know things won't fall apart if you aren't here to hold them together," she said. "We've survived without you before."

Don winced. He _knew_ his team was good. The shrink had been working with him on this, on learning to trust them. He knew Megan was a capable leader, that Colby and David were both very solid agents, capable of getting a lot done. He knew, in the back of his mind, that they would be fine without him. But no one wants to feel useless. He wanted to think that they did need him. He was a good agent – Charlie always said he had a ginormous ego, and no one got to that kind of ego without knowing they were good at what they did. But the counterpart to having that ginormous ego was the tendency to feel that he was _necessary_, that maybe even if they would survive without him, they were better off with him. That his presence was _important_. And right now his ginormous ego was throbbing a little from the blow of Megan's comment.

"Yeah, well, the ADIC called me specifically, so I guess you're stuck with me anyway." He popped a piece of gum, carefully folding the wrapper and slipping it back into his pocket. "Let's just get back to work," he muttered, striding back into the building.


	4. Chapter 4

**Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed**

**Chapter Four**

Being the FBI was a sickening circle of waiting then running, of shielding then shooting. For every moment they spent gearing up for a raid, donning their Kevlar and kicking open doors, there were at least ten of just sitting in the office waiting for results, sifting through the database, watching Charlie stare at one of his boards, or just waiting for inspiration to strike.

Now was one such moment of waiting. They had finished searching the apartment, sent everything pertinent to the lab with priority, and then they moved to the war room to sit and wait. Megan was researching ricin, looking for anything that might narrow down where they should be looking. Don hunched over the files they had both on previous ricin poisonings and each of the victims, head supported by one hand as he stared persistently at the same page.

"The problem," he said, finally. "Is that the symptoms are vague enough that it's hard to pinpoint, and poisonings are rare enough that no one keeps the cure on hand." He flipped a page. "I mean, abdominal pain, vomiting? Who goes to the doctor for that stuff as soon as it starts?"

"Anybody who isn't you," Megan retorted. Don glared at her.

"I mean, you'd at least wait a day, right? But by then, you're having hallucinations, maybe even seizures, your liver and kidneys are shutting down, your blood pressure is nothing, and you're dead." Don closed the file and put his face in his hands. "Those people probably didn't even think they were sick enough to go to the doctor until it was too late."

"Bigger problem," Megan said. "From what I'm seeing here, there's nothing special needed to isolate the toxin. It's easier to make than most food items. You wouldn't need anything special to do it."

"Wonderful," Don groaned. "Can we get a list of people who have bought the right supplies?"

"The only really noteworthy thing is castor beans, which are available at any decently sized garden supply store."

Don sighed heavily. "Maybe once we narrow down locations we can get a list from local stores and cross-check."

"We come bearing food," Colby announced as he and David walked in, sliding a box of doughnuts onto the table. "Figured you guys might be as hungry as I am by now."

Don glanced up at him. "Good thinking." He turned his chair away from the table, the sight and smell of the doughnuts making him even more nauseated. The room spun for a full second after his chair had stopped and he almost threw up right there, but with a tremendous effort, he restrained himself. He didn't begrudge his team some food after all the work they'd done all night, but he would be lying if he said he was happy to be smelling those doughnuts. He cleared his throat, which turned out to be a colossal mistake. Immediately, he felt the muscles of his throat begin to clench in the familiar motion of the loud, hacking cough that had plagued him all day. Every rough exhale felt like knives in his lungs and throat, and by the time he was able to pause in his cough to gasp for breath, he was lightheaded and his chest ached – and unfortunately the sharp intake of breath further aggravated his lungs and brought on another long battle with the cough. By the time he calmed his body enough to take a few slow, shallow breaths and force down the catch in his throat, his team was staring at him open-mouthed, and Megan had the phone halfway to her ear and Don suspected she was probably either calling his dad or an ambulance. "How'd the interview go?" he ground out, deciding to proceed as though nothing unusual had happened.

"We didn't get a lot out of her," David answered. "Nothing we didn't learn from her apartment, anyway. Pretty normal day. She got up, went to work – she's a teller at a bank. Then she went home, then to the grocery store, the dry cleaner, went back home and cooked some dinner. " Don wished, slightly bitterly, that that was what a normal day looked like for him. Not that he didn't love his job, but once in a while, a "normal day" that did not involve dealing with the scum of the earth sounded like a decent alternative.

"They're testing the dishes she used to cook breakfast and dinner, and the food in her fridge used to make her lunch. The only other thing was a drink she bought at the grocery store, and the bottle to that is being analyzed as well," Colby added, taking a bite of his doughnut. "So here's the thing I don't get."

"Please, enlighten us," Don muttered, turning away from the sight of the doughnut once more. He clenched his teeth and continued to tell himself that he would vomit in the office over his own dead body, and that wasn't physically possible. Colby went on undeterred. "If this is an act of terrorism, what is this guy's motive? It's such a small scale attack; it seems like a test run."

"Probably is a test run," David said.

"But what is he testing? It seems that all but one received a roughly similar dose, and for that matter, a lethal dose of ricin is so miniscule you could give a person three times what was necessary without them even noticing. "

"Locations, maybe?" Megan suggested.

"But wouldn't we have some victims coming from the same location then? If he's testing which location will hit the most people, he either made some very bad guesses or…"

"Or that isn't what he's doing," Don filled in. "So what else could it be? Medium, perhaps? Which items can be most easily poisoned but will also sell quickly?"

"But again, why not multiple of the same things?" David asked.

"Unless it wasn't a test run," Don said, realization dawning. "It was a threat."

* * *

"Test results are in," Colby announced, sitting down at the computer and pulling up onto the big screen a map of Los Angeles. "Points of origin here….here…here…here…here." Five coloured dots appeared on the screen.

"Five separate locations," Megan observed.

"You see what I see?" Don asked, the connections appearing before him. "Remember Charlie's lesson on randomness? These aren't random – they're evenly spaced."

"Maybe Charlie can take a look at these and narrow down where we should be looking," David said. Don held up his phone, Charlie's number already dialed.

* * *

"You're right, it definitely isn't random," Charlie said, peering at the map. "But there isn't a lot of data here to work with."

"Anything you can give us would be great," Megan said sincerely.

"It should be easy enough to input this into my previous algorithm and see what we can come up with. I'll have it to you as soon as I can," he promised.

"Great, Charlie," Megan said, smiling. "Listen, I've got to run, but let us know as soon as you get anything."

Charlie turned back to the map, then pulled a marker from his pocket, beginning to scribble on the board. Minutes and several lines of complex equation later, he turned to pick up his laptop, only to get distracted by the appearance of his older brother.

Don looked terrible, to put it kindly. He was pale and sweaty, dark circles under his eyes, his gait slow and almost painful.

"Don…" Charlie breathed.

"Hey, buddy, how ya doing?" Don greeted, managing a small smile before doubling over in a fit of coughing Charlie could easily describe as the worst he had ever heard. It sounded like his brother was quite literally about to lose a lung, and Charlie rushed to his side to steady him as Don wavered slightly.

"A lot better than you," he said, once Don had caught his breath. "Geez, Don, what are you even doing here? If Dad saw you right now he'd –"

"Dad isn't here," Don said. "And you can't tell him anything, okay? Last thing I need is Dad showing up in the middle of this." Don sank into a chair, scrubbing one hand across his face.

"Did you at least take anything? Because I could get you some aspirin, or some flu medicine, or something," Charlie rambled.

"Can't hold anything down," Don said hoarsely. "Look, don't worry. As soon as we solve this, I promise I'll go home and rest up. So the sooner you solve that equation there, the sooner I can get out of here." Don smiled jokingly at Charlie, who frowned worriedly back.

"It's not really a matter of solving it, per se, as narrowing it down to a range of values that support the data set," he said, typing a couple of numbers into the laptop, before peering at Don over the screen again. Don glanced at Charlie from behind his own computer.

"Seriously, Chuck, it's fine. There's a terrorist out there right now intent on killing God knows how many people. I'm not going to let the flu keep me from catching the son of a bitch."

"Don't call me 'Chuck,'" Charlie muttered, ducking back behind his computer to hide a smile.


	5. Chapter 5

**Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed**

**Chapter Five**

"Okay, I've narrowed it down to this area," Charlie said, tapping a couple keys to highlight one section of the map.

"That's a pretty big area," Don said, disappointed.

"Sorry," Charlie said. "But five data points aren't a lot to go on."

"No, no. Good work, Charlie." He peered at the map, then asked "Are there any garden supply stores in that area?"

"Three." Charlie tapped a couple keys and pulled up the store information.

"Print that for me?" Don requested, heaving himself out of his chair with more effort than he cared to admit. He snagged the page just as the printer spit it out, on his way out the door.

He found David at his desk, just arriving back from questioning one of the stores that was the site of the poisoning. "Anything?"

"Not a lot. We took samples from other drinks at the store, but nothing came up. And no one who was working noticed anything out of the ordinary."

Don nodded. "I figured. Could you talk to these stores, get lists of anyone who bought castor seeds in the last six months?"

"I'm on it," David affirmed, turning to his computer. Don turned around and started, shocked to find Charlie standing next to him.

"Geez, Charlie! Trying to scare me to death?" Don shook his head, trying to calm his increased heart rate as it made his head throb more frequently.

"So what's the next step here?" Charlie asked, following Don as he headed towards the break room.

"We need to think," Don replied. He opened the fridge in the break room and took out a bottle of water, twisting the cap off and taking a small sip. His mouth was incredibly dry and he was feeling weak and dizzy – or, more so than he had been. All signs point to dehydration. He wanted to kick himself for allowing it to happen, but he had a few other things on his mind.

Don folded himself into one of the chairs, leaning over the table. He forced himself to take measured sips of his water. He caught Charlie watching him and gave his brother the most intimidating stare he could manage, but to no avail. Sighing, he looked away and returned his focus to the case.

"How do you know that this wasn't the whole attack?" Charlie asked. "What if the guy just wanted to kill a few people?"

"Ricin is easy to make, but it's dangerous," Don said. "Getting just a little on your skin, or inhaling even less than that would be deadly. No one would risk that much to kill just a couple people. There are a lot of things that are easier to handle, if you don't need that much. Any of the heavy metals, cyanide…no, this guy definitely is planning something bigger." He fell silent, considering. People said the way to catch a criminal was to think like one. If it were him, he thought, he would want the poison to hit not just the maximum number of people, but the maximum area. He'd want it to be so widespread no one would feel safe buying food anywhere. But how could a person tamper with that many products, at that many locations? Unless they were at the source…

Don bolted from his chair and strode back to the war room, Charlie on his heels. "Distribution centers," Don said. "The best way to contaminate food that is headed for multiple destinations in the same city. If it were a factory worker, we'd have cases everywhere, not five all in Los Angeles."

"But there have to be hundreds of distribution centers in Los Angeles," Charlie said.

"We could cross check with the list David is working on, and the people living in the area you marked," Don said.

"Wait," Charlie said, eyes opening wide. "What if we aren't looking for a house in this area at all?" He looked at Don expectantly.

"I'm gonna need more, buddy."

"When you took calculus in high school, you probably covered optimization, right? The idea that with a certain set of conditions, there is an ideal solution that yields the best possible results. Picture a college student with five hours to kill one night, and forty-eight dollars to spend. He could spend his time being tutored for his exam the next day, or he could go out and party. Or he could do both. And if we say it costs eight dollars per hour to be tutored, but sixteen to party, well we have a dilemma. If he parties for three hours, he's run out of money and he still has two hours left to do nothing. But if he gets tutored for all five hours, he hasn't used all his money, and thus he hasn't gotten the maximum reward."

"So you're saying our terrorist is trying to optimize his attack."

"Our terrorist has, say, twenty-four hours to distribute as much poison as he can. But there are other factors. He wants to hit as many locations as possible, probably decently far apart. But he is limited by travel time and how much his truck can hold."

"His actual location has nothing to do with it," Don realized. "The important thing is –"

"The distribution center," Charlie finished, scribbling furiously on the board. "So if we rework this equation slightly, assuming certain values for minimum distance – because he is trying to make the data look random – then we can narrow down the possible distribution centers."

"Great work," Don said, clapping his brother on the shoulder and upsetting his writing. "You keep working on this, I'm going to call the stores and see if they keep records of who drops off their shipments."

As he strode across the bull pen, David caught up to him, walking along side him. "I've got the list, Don, but it's huge. It'll take us days to contact these people, and a lot of people paid with cash, so we don't even have their names."

"Well, Charlie's working on a new equation for us, so just hold on to the list, and we'll compare names and see if anything jumps out at us." Don briefly outlined the conversation between him and Charlie, skipping the long-winded metaphor and going directly to the punch line.

"But the guy is probably producing the toxin at his house – so these may not even be the stores he'd go to," David pointed out.

"Maybe," Don conceded. "Where do you get your groceries?"

"What?"

"When you leave here late at night, do you go home and then go back out to get groceries, or do you swing by a store between here and your house?" David nodded. "It's a pretty safe bet that his house isn't too far from his work, and if he's anything like us, he probably went to a store close to his work." Don veered towards the men's room. "It may not turn up anything, but it's a start. Can you call the stores and see if they have any kind of log as to who drops off their supplies and when?" Without waiting for an answer, he pushed through the door of the men's room, stumbled into a stall and threw up yet again, before experiencing another coughing fit so debilitating it left him lightheaded and trembling.

When he woke up a little over twenty hours ago, he had thought it was not even possible to feel worse. Now he'd give anything to go back to this morning.

He'd been sick for days already, though it was difficult to tell exactly where exhaustion ended and actual illness began. But it had been manageable, if only because Don was far too stubborn to admit defeat. But now, even his stubbornness wasn't enough to get Don up off the bathroom floor and on with his life. Every single muscle ached, his head pounded, his stomach was still in knots, he was dehydrated, feverish, exhausted, and stressed. But all of that he could push through. The real issue was the gasping for breath, the heavy feeling in his chest that forced him to inhale in quick, shallow bursts, leaving his head spinning and his already sore throat dry and irritated. He began coughing once more, vision becoming black at the edges before he managed to quell it.

Even Don had to admit, things were not looking good. By the time he finally managed to pick himself up off the floor and head to the sink to wash up, Charlie was looking for him, ready to share some results. And Don washed and dried his hands, studiously avoided his own reflection, and followed Charlie back to the war room – at an admittedly slower pace than normal, but he wouldn't split hairs. No matter how bad his own illness was, an attack on the greater Los Angeles area would leave a lot of people doing even worse. And Don Eppes, along with all his commitment issues, trust issues, and workaholism, could also claim a huge hero complex. He'd have to mention that to his shrink, assuming he stopped the attack and they both lived that long. If he didn't stop it, well, some hero he was.


	6. Chapter 6

**Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed**

**Chapter Six**

"The Los Angeles Distribution Center operated by the Hitachi Transport System," Charlie said. "I can say with about eight-five percent certainty that your guy works here."

"Look at the location," Colby said. "In the South Bay, near the LA port, and right by LAX."

"If this guy works here, he could kill half of the city," David finished.

"Colby, pull up a list of employees that work at the center," Don commanded from his seat at the back of the room. With such a targeted search, the results were up in only a minute or so.

"We're probably looking for someone with a criminal record, someone with links to past terrorist organizations," Megan added.

"David, your list," Don ordered. David leaned over Colby's shoulder and punched in a few more things. The list narrowed down to about ten people.

"Jordan Reynolds," Megan said. A picture of a white man with hauntingly dark eyes, heavy brows and dark hair took over the screen. "He's been previously charged with assault, and he has been involved in violent protests against the government."

"Let's go talk to him," Don said, pulling his keys from his pocket. "Hey, thanks, buddy."

"Of course," Charlie said, watching the agents file out until he was left alone sitting on a desk in the war room.

* * *

"Okay, according to the manager, he should be inside, returning his truck and punching out," Megan said, returning to where the other agents were waiting near Don's truck.

Don wordlessly walked toward the doors, Colby and Megan on his heels. Stepping inside the building, Don scanned the room back and forth looking for their guy. Jordan Reynolds became incredibly apparent with the sound of running footfalls, of a door bursting open on the other side of the room, the face from the picture just visible looking back in fear before disappearing outside.

"Aw, hell! FBI! Freeze!" Don exclaimed, taking off toward the door. "Colby!" He motioned to Colby to go around the side of the building as he accelerated to a full sprint. He slammed into the door, knocking it open wide, then turning right then left looking for Reynolds. Reynolds was running down the alley towards the back of the warehouse, glancing over his shoulder as he went. Don gave chase again, every step coursing through his aching muscles, making him dizzy. After only a few seconds his lungs burned with the lack of oxygen, but he forced himself on, to the end of the alley, around the corner, closing in on Reynolds but still nowhere near close enough. He heard Colby's steps behind him, out of sync from his own, and prayed that if he couldn't make it Colby would.

Reynolds ran to the edge of the back lot, meeting a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. The wire did little to deter him as he leapt against the fence, catching the wire between his fingers and beginning to scale it, though more carefully towards the top. Don ran even faster, somehow though he had been sure he was not capable of more speed, at the sight of Reynolds about to disappear over the fence. He reached the fence just as Reynolds made to swing one leg over the top and he lunged forward, catching the man's ankle, prying him from his precarious position.

Not having thought this through entirely, Don struggled as the other man toppled from the fence to land almost on top of him, knocking Don to the ground.

"Stay down!" Don yelled, wrestling with the guy, trying to keep his hands in sight while still gaining the advantage. Quite abruptly, Reynolds was lifted off of him, and the sudden lack of crushing pressure on his chest allowed the sharp intake of breath that his body craved but which he did not want, and he began to cough, wheezing and gasping. He rolled onto his side, trying to make it to his hands and knees before the inevitable happened – and he just made it before he vomited in between coughs. When that was over, still coughing, he rolled away, feeling his legs curl in toward his chest.

"Don! Don, you okay?" Colby shouted over the coughing, holding tight to Reynolds' handcuffs. Don blinked up at him, noting , for reasons not apparent to him, the chain-link pattern on Reynolds face where Colby had shoved him none too gently against the fence to cuff him and the worry on Colby's face and he could hear footsteps running toward them. And suddenly Megan was there, helping him to sit up, one hand on his chest, instructing him to slow his breathing, to just relax and he listened, letting her voice calm him until he could inhale in short, shallow bursts, but it was enough to clear the black spots from his vision.

"I'm okay now," Don said finally, watching Colby march Reynolds across the lot. "Thanks."

"Maybe you should just stay here a moment and we'll call –"

"I'm not going to a hospital," Don interrupted. "Seriously, I feel better. Just let me up. Ground's cold."

* * *

Don watched the monitor as David questioned Reynolds, watched as David lowered his voice menacingly and Reynolds stared unflinchingly back, refusing to answer a single question. There was no doubt Reynolds was their terrorist – a vial of ricin in his pocket was evidence enough for a full warrant for his car and his home, as well as a warrant for his arrest. Colby had reported that Reynolds' house contained enough ricin for the kind of attack the FBI would only consider in its worst nightmare. "On the bright side," he said, "we're not seeing any evidence that he had anyone else in on this. It's looking a lot like a one-man operation."

Don had called and had all of Reynolds' deliveries pulled from the stores and brought back to the FBI lab for testing and probably disposal. The ricin at the house was being taken care of by Haz-Mat and really all that was left was to verify the lack of accomplices and fill out some paperwork.

David strode out of the interrogation room, joining Don walking over to their desks. "He's not giving an inch," he reported. If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if he was mute."

"He may not need to," Megan said, waving a notebook as she walked in with Colby. "We found this at his home. Details on all of his plans, his motivations, basically every thought he's had in months."

"Guy's a nutcase," Colby added.

"And an anarchist," Megan added. "He thought that by killing just a few people to hint at a larger attack, when the larger attack did happen, all the flak would be on law enforcement for the initial cover-up."

"If we had put it all over the news, there would've been mass panic," Don said.

"But the public doesn't see it that way," David said. "If you or your family got poisoned and you found out the government knew and didn't warn anyone – you'd be pissed." Don nodded his assent at that.

"It was all a scare tactic designed to crumble the trust metric between the people and its government," Megan said. "Make people fear something as colloquial as going to the grocery store, the world becomes a very irrational place. And then by setting up the FBI to take the blame…"

"And we're sure he acted alone?" Don queried.

"There's no evidence otherwise," Colby said. "He's a loner. No real friends. Hasn't even made any calls except for takeout."

"I guess that's it, then," Don said tiredly. "Good work today, all of you. Go home, get some rest, you deserve it," he said sincerely. Colby and David exchanged glances. Don, too tired to even try to deduce what they could possibly have a problem with, decided to ignore it, turning back to the report in front of him.

"No, you don't," Megan said, shaking his shoulder. "Don't get too comfortable. It's time for you to go home, too."

"I was just going to finish this up," Don said weakly, sensing the three of them were about to gang up on him.

"You'll finish it later, after you go home and get well," Megan said. "You're lucky I didn't call an ambulance back in the field, but don't think I won't do it now." Colby and David grinned slightly as Don dropped his pen and stood up shakily, reaching for his keys, only to have Megan swipe them. "And I'm driving you home."

"You know I'm your boss, right? Not the other way around," Don grumbled, walking with his team toward the elevators.

"I'm the boss when you're incapacitated," Megan retorted. They rode downstairs, Don leaning heavily against the wall of the elevator, then headed towards Megan's car. David and Colby split off toward their own vehicles, David wishing Don well, and Colby telling Don that he was suing if he caught whatever Don had.

Once in the car, Don leaned his head back against the seat, eyes drooping. His entire body literally ached, every muscle coiled with stress and anxiety and, he suspected, dehydration. He hadn't managed any water since the breakthrough on the distribution center, and he hadn't even kept that down. He could hear a rattle in his chest when he breathed and it was starting to irritate him.

"My apartment is that way," Don interjected as Megan turned the wrong way.

"We aren't going to your apartment," she said simply.

"No. I'm not going to Charlie's," Don said loudly. Megan ignored him. "Do you know how much my dad is going to fuss and make a big deal out of this? I don't want them to worry."

"I know how you get after cases like this," Megan said, looking over at him with worried, sincere eyes. "And no matter if you don't realize it or don't want to admit it, you are extremely ill. I'm not comfortable leaving you alone, but I'm too tired to stay with you. So it's Charlie's or a hospital, take your pick."

Don gave her a sulky look before closing his eyes, the pinkish hue of the morning doing nothing good for his pounding head. He felt himself shivering again and thought maybe Megan was right. Much as he hated to admit it, he couldn't remember the last time he was this sick. And if he was going to be even more honest with himself, he knew he was too sick to be taking care of himself. He doubted he could even make canned soup right now, not that he had any. He didn't even like soup, for the most part, but that was what you ate when you were sick and your stomach was unsettled and it had not occurred to him until now that that was probably the reason most people kept soup on hand. It wouldn't be terrible, he concluded, to have his family around him to help, should he need it. He didn't want to worry them, but he did have a sneaking suspicion that they worried just as much on the nights when he turned off his cell phone and dropped off the face of the earth as they did when they knew he was hurt. Maybe there really was just no avoiding it. As much as he struggled to never worry anyone – his team, Liz, his family – in the end, maybe it wasn't possible. Maybe no matter how hard he tried, he was just destined to be a burden.


	7. Chapter 7

**Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed**

**Chapter Seven**

Everyone was different, but there was a comfortable range of differences, a normally distributed set, and for those who fell much more than a standard deviation outside that set, on either end, were always the outcasts. And Charlie, being at least two standard deviations outside of the norm, and on the high end to boot, had always struggled. In his calculations, a student could be assigned a number, a value based on certain factors – academia, popularity, personality, economic status, and so on – and from this, the hierarchy of social statuses could be extrapolated. The interesting part about this math was that certain factors became more weighted as they reached higher levels – for instance, Charlie, though overall his integer was not far above normal, still fell far outside the norm due to his increasingly heavy academic ranking. The better you were at one thing, the more important it became. And Charlie excelled at math. And for this, he was an outcast, so far out on the bell curve he could barely see the cluster at the center.

Don, in contrast, actually ranked higher than Charlie, based on Charlie's own equation. Like he had been in baseball, Don was a utility player – decently good in almost every category, without excelling unduly in any category. Very smart but never ruined the curve, popular enough to warrant a lot of friends but not many enemies, with a personality good enough that even those who didn't know him considered him likeable. Don was above the mean of the bell curve, probably a standard deviation above, but those people were admired, not ostracized.

All this to say, Charlie was often bullied, be it verbal or physical, while Don could have skated by without ever having to deal with such things. Except he didn't. Don had come home with far more than his fair share (even if he had been exactly average) of bruises, bloody noses, and detention slips. And though Don would refuse to explain anything beyond "I got in a fight" to his parents, which often resulted in further punishment, Charlie knew the reason for those injuries. After all, math never lies.

Don had spent his entire childhood protecting Charlie. Though Charlie knew that his thoughts and his math were as much a mystery to Don as they were to the rest of the world, he also knew that Don understood something about Charlie that few others realized. Charlie's math told him a lot of things – he could explain high school hierarchy far better than anyone else ever had – but math had never helped him to navigate the world. So Don walked before him, parting the way and blocking the blows that would have been Charlie's if his brother had been any less noble, responsible, and let's just face it, heroic, than he was. And of course Don's sense of responsibility had only increased over the years and Charlie had seen what he would describe, if he was not that math prodigy that he was, as countless times Don had stepped into the line of fire to save his little brother. Often he literally stepped into the line of fire – he had shoved Charlie out of the way of bullets, placing his own body between Charlie and a gun. And other times it was simply Don protecting him from people taking advantage of him or pressuring him for results, though even Don did this at times. And for all the times that Don had yelled at Charlie, scolded him as though Charlie really was just another of his agents, he tried not to take it too personally because underneath it all, he could see that Don was afraid he had put Charlie in harm's way and that went against everything he had worked for all this time.

Charlie knew it had taken every ounce of humility Don possessed to ask Charlie for help three years ago. And he understood – Don asking for help was such a statistical anomaly it was hardly worth mentioning as a possibility if they were looking at it statistically. But he had been more than happy to do it. Ecstatic actually. He knew Don worried that he was wasting Charlie's talents when Charlie could be doing "greater things." But what he failed to realize was that sometimes, seeing his math applied to making the world a little safer for him, his father, Amita, even Don, sometimes that made the equations glow just a little brighter, sometimes that brought him more joy than his cognitive emergence theory. Much as he loved his theory and his work on that theory, there was no denying the rush of seeing his math in action. And even more than that, to finally be able to help Don, to finally begin to pay him back for all the sacrifices he had made, that made everything worth it.

It was for this same reason that Charlie was not all that disgruntled at being roused from a deep sleep at four-thirty in the morning with a call from Megan. And it was why he was content to watch the driveway from the window, listening intently for the sound of tires on pavement and probably of Don protesting.

Megan had called him first from the office after they had apprehended their terrorist, before Charlie had even gone to bed. She explained that they had caught the man, and that all that was left to do now was to verify that he had no accomplices, search his house, interrogate him, and file the paperwork. Then she told him of Don's episode in the field, explained how concerned she was. Megan also explained that Don had adamantly refused medical attention, and even more obstinately insisted he would not be leaving the office until the case was officially closed. She said Don had set up camp directing from the bull pen and that she figured as long as he stayed in that chair, where he looked quite content, he wasn't in any immediate danger. Charlie had made her promise to bring Don to his house as soon as he could be persuaded or even dragged kicking and screaming from the office, no matter what the time.

Megan's second call was to inform him that the team had a plan to force Don out the door and that she would be dropping him off within the hour. So Charlie had dragged himself out of bed, put on some tea, and settled himself to wait with a copy of _Applied Mathematics_.

It was after five by the time he heard Don's key in the lock, heard a car reversing from the driveway. He stood up as the door swung open, Don waveringly stepping inside, trying to be completely silent. Charlie stepped forward, bare feet making only a slight sound on the wood floor, but Don spun to face him, one hand reaching for the gun at his belt, the other clutching the doorknob for, Charlie assumed, balance, as Don wavered even more.

"What are you doing up?" Don asked, confused, hand dropping from his gun. Charlie took a moment to look his brother over. His skin was almost grey, the only colour a bit of a flush on his cheeks and the purple circles under his eyes. He was shaking gently, Charlie noted, and still seemed to be relying on the door to hold him up.

"Megan called me," Charlie said. Don shook his head as he closed the door behind him.

"She shouldn't have done that," he said. "I'm okay. Just need a little sleep before I head back in –"

"You're not going in tomorrow," Charlie said, surprised. "Megan didn't tell you? She talked to the ADIC. You're taking at least three days off."

Don frowned. "Does everyone think they can just go over my head?" he grumbled. "It's just a touch of flu, I'll be fine once I get some sleep."

"She told me what happened," Charlie broke in. "How you couldn't stop coughing, how you almost passed out."

"It wasn't that bad," Don insisted.

"Colby was ready to carry you back to the car and take you to the hospital, if he hadn't been holding onto Reynolds," Charlie stated. "And you know he doesn't scare easily."

Don grunted noncommittally. "We can argue later," he said finally. "I can barely think –" Abruptly, his words cut off as his breath hitched, and then he was coughing, a rough, wet rattling from his lungs, unable to stop long enough to inhale at all. Charlie ran to his side, supporting him as Don doubled over. Charlie patted his back, already seeing Colby's point. If he had more upper body strength, he would be considering the same thing.

"What's going on?" Alan demanded from the stairs, but quickly deduced on his own as he reached the entryway. "Donnie!"

"'m fine," Don gasped, attempting to straighten up, even as his knees buckled, and Charlie barely managed to keep both of them from collapsing to the floor. Alan rushed forward, catching Don by his shoulders and helping Charlie to half-carry him over to the couch. Once there, Don slumped, clearly exhausted. And no wonder, Charlie thought, since according to his calculations, Don had been up more than twenty-four hours after only a few hours sleep, plus he had the flu. It was a testament to Don's sheer obstinacy that he was still awake and somewhat functioning.

Alan sat next to Don, reaching to wrap a blanket around his shoulders, and Charlie suddenly realized Don was shivering. Alan then reached up and brushed a few short strands of hair from Don's face, resting his fingers lightly on his forehead. "Donnie, you're burning up," he said softly. Charlie noted that, though Don was clearly running a fever, he was not sweating anymore – and he remembered Don forcing himself to sip water, that Don had mentioned not being able to keep anything down. He rushed to the kitchen, returning moments later with a bottle of water, which he offered to Don, who shook his head.

"C'mon, you're clearly dehydrated. If you get much worse, we really will have to take you to the hospital," Charlie persuaded. Don met his eyes, the utter misery there almost more than Charlie could bear, but nonetheless he took the proffered water and took a small sip. Another shiver wracked his body, and Alan rubbed his back gently. After a few long moments and a couple more sips, Alan asked "Do you think you can make it upstairs?"

Don nodded silently, pulling himself to his feet unsteadily. He swayed, but waved Charlie away when he stepped forward to help. It was a slow journey up the stairs, but when they finally made it to Don's room, he slowly removed his gun, phone and badge from his belt and placed them on the nightstand, stepped out of his shoes and kicked off his socks. Then he glanced over at Charlie and Alan who hovered within easy reach of him, should they be needed. "You mind?" he gestured at the door. "I'd like to change."

"Oh, oh, yes," Alan stammered, stepping out into the hall with Charlie. They hovered there a few moments, exchanged concerned looks and peering at the closed door. Finally, it opened and Don stood there in a t-shirt and pajama pants, looking not at all surprised.

"I think I'm going to get some sleep now," he said.

"Okay," Charlie agreed.

"I thought I should tell you so you two don't spend all morning standing here watching my door," Don said.

"We'll just be downstairs if you need us," Alan said. Don nodded, clearly restraining himself from pointing out what Charlie was sure would be an argument containing at least one of the phrases "I'm a grown man," "I'm okay," and "please don't worry." He instead turned back to go inside his room.

"Don?" Don stopped and turned back to look at Charlie. "Good work today. I know it can't have been easy and just…you saved a lot of lives today."

A ghost of a smile graced Don's lips. "Thanks, Chuck," he said softly, before disappearing into his room.

Both Alan and Charlie stared at the door for a long moment, before Alan motioned Charlie downstairs, saying "So would you like to explain what happened today?"

Charlie sketched out a response, filling his father in on the poisonings, the imminent attack, Don's adamant refusal to rest until he knew they were all safe. The facts were straightforward.

It was when he got to Don himself, to explaining his brother's deterioration, that they were not so simple. When he realized that he could not pinpoint the origin of Don's issues, that when he thought about it, his brother had been exhausted, grouchy, and borderline ill for a few weeks now, he realized that even in all his best efforts to repay Don, he would never measure up. He had no doubt that had he been struggling as Don clearly had been, Don would've not only noticed but taken care of the problem on day one, not day whatever this was when it was as obvious as a junior high math problem. Don would've deduced what was wrong, offered some brotherly advice and support, made sure Charlie got some rest and a fresh perspective, made him take some time to relax.

When it came down to it, Charlie realized, it was simply a pattern. Don repeatedly proved himself to be the capable agent and brother, to not only understand people but consistently care for them and put them before himself. And Charlie, despite his best efforts to break his own pattern, still found himself, at every turn, getting lost in the numbers and forgetting that the whole was sometimes more than just the sum of its parts, no matter what the math may say.


	8. Chapter 8

**Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed**

**Chapter Eight**

Less than two hours after collapsing into his bed, Don realized he was awake. He was not entirely certain when he had woken up, or if he had even ever slept, but if he had slept, it could not have been more than an hour. His thoughts were cycling on repeat, and he had no idea how long they had been doing so.

The door opened just a crack and he glanced over at the light, not at all surprised to see his father peering in at him. "Donnie, why aren't you asleep?" Alan asked softly, opening the door further. Don turned his gaze back to the ceiling.

"Just a lot on my mind," he admitted quietly. Alan stepped into the room, coming to sit on the edge of Don's bed, as he had so many times when Don was growing up. Don pushed himself into a more upright position against his pillows.

"What's going on?" Alan asked simply.

Don sighed and did his best to stifle a cough. "I'm sure Charlie filled you in on the case already," Don started, pausing for Alan to nod his agreement. "Things could have ended up a lot differently today."

"But they didn't. You got the guy."

"We did," Don agreed. "It's just…I make a lot of decisions every day that would kill a lot of people if I were wrong. I wasn't wrong today, but I will be someday."

"You put too much pressure on yourself," Alan protested. "You have a team, you have a boss, there are people checking your work."

"Usually," Don agreed. But sometimes there wasn't time and they just needed a course of action and the first person to speak would be the leader, and it was always Don. And even though everyone always said you couldn't be blamed for decisions made under duress, those were the decisions he made every day. You can be blamed for those decisions. He made the split-second decision to shoot Crystal Hoyle because the idea of waiting even another second for Ian to take care of it was unbearable to him – and not for the reasons people wanted to think. He didn't want to kill her; he did not even want her dead. He did not want the glory and he did not enjoy shooting anyone. He chose to shoot her because she was endangering his life and the lives of his team and he could only put up with that kind of threat for a few seconds before he had to snap to action.

"If the attack had gone through today, it would have been my fault," he said instead. "And I know you're going to tell me that I didn't make him do anything, but I knew he was out there and I decided not to warn the public. If I had chosen to issue a statement, everyone would have been safe."

"It's FBI policy to keep those things under wraps," Alan countered.

"It is," Don said. "But we make exceptions. I didn't even ask the ADIC to make an exception. I didn't even tell you," he added, unable to meet his father's eyes as he considered what would have happened, had Alan eaten the ricin-laced food, had Alan been a victim of an attack he not only failed to stop but helped to cover up.

"Sometimes Charlie tells me about the things he sees consulting for the FBI," Alan said thoughtfully. "Blood and bullets and crime scenes. He tells me how you've risked your life for him, and for people you don't even know."

"It's my job," Don said faintly, closing his eyes and resting his aching head against the headboard.

"That's my point exactly. Charlie tells me these things he sees that scare him sometimes, and he and I both know that it is only a fraction of the things you see. I would give my life for you, Donnie, and I would like to think I would do the same for a stranger, but I don't know. But you do it every single day." Don started to shake his head, uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation, but Alan persisted. "I know that if there was a way to save more lives, you would be doing it. I trust your judgment, Donnie. I know you try to protect me; I know you wouldn't let anything happen to me or Charlie."

Don nodded, meeting his dad's eyes again. "You're good at your job, Donnie. And I know that in the moment you're confident in your decisions, even if you second-guess them when all is said and done. But if there ever comes a time when things don't work out so well, I know you did all you could, and it wasn't your fault."

Don swallowed hard, an unfamiliar lump forming in his throat. He attributed this to the stress, the illness, the lack of sleep. Don Eppes did not cry for anything or anyone, ever. "Thanks Dad," he managed.

"One more thing," Alan said mock-sternly. "I know you want to protect me, but I was protecting you long before that. You can always tell me those things you see that even Charlie doesn't know about."

"Don't want you to worry."

"I worry either way. And maybe I would worry less if I knew you were talking about it." Alan reached out to Don and made a motion Don would have called brushing his hair from his face, had Don had long enough hair to do that with, but as it was, it was an obvious temperature-check of a worried father. Alan pursed his lips and stood up, bustling out of the room with a quick "be right back." Don sank further down in bed, drawing the blankets higher once more. Alan returned with a couple Tylenol, placing them in Don's hand. "For the fever," he said, handing Don the bottle of water that had been resting, conspicuously full, on his nightstand. "And drink the rest of that," he ordered.

"Yes, Dad," Don said, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly, making a show of taking the pills and drinking a bit of the water.

"Night, Donnie," Alan said, pulling the door closed behind him. Don took one more sip, then buried his head under a pillow, listening to his thoughts quiet until he finally drifted to sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

**Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed**

**Chapter Nine**

In what had long been the typical fashion, Don was roused four hours later by the telltale hum of his vibrating phone on his nightstand. Thoroughly encased in blankets, Don blindly stuck one hand out into the cool air of the rest of the room and felt around haphazardly for his phone. After knocking a bottle of water off the nightstand, jarring the clock and almost upending the lamp, he gave up all hope of finding his phone by touch alone, and since it had long since stopped buzzing, his ears weren't helping much either.

Don withdrew his hand and briefly considered allowing himself to go back to sleep. He was almost warm enough under his blankets, the bed was soft, and the mere idea of moving made his entire body throb. But after a thirty second attempt to just forget the phone entirely, he dragged the blankets back and peered out, unable to shake the guilty feeling that he might be needed.

His phone was not on the table. A slow but thorough search of the surrounding area revealed his gun, badge and wallet sitting neatly in a row on the dresser, his clothes lying in an undignified heap in the corner, the phone case on his belt empty, and the phone nowhere in sight. Deciding he must have dreamed the phone call entirely, Don looked longingly at his bed for a long moment, before realizing that the fact that he had dreamed a phone call did not mean a call had not actually occurred. His phone was not here with him; he could have twenty missed calls. And that was not acceptable.

Don glanced at his bed once more, tugged one of the blankets off of it and wrapped it securely about his shoulders, then ventured out into the rest of the house. A quick foray into his father's room proved the phone was not there, and one look into Charlie's room was evidence enough that, had his phone been in there, he'd be better off buying a new one. Steeling himself, Don descended the stairs, every step jarring his head, which was already threatening a small explosion at the effort of standing upright. Everything spun lazily and nauseatingly, and about two-thirds of the way down the stairs, Don had to pause to regroup. His head, though pounding with all its might, felt distant, and his movements felt slow and uncoordinated, as though he was drunk. But he wasn't drunk, he concluded. He was sick and dizzy and incredibly cranky that someone had taken his phone. Deciding it would not do to remain swaying on the stairs, he took another step down, and the resulting jolt sent black spots exploding through his vision. His momentum going forward, he was forced to take another step, and the resulting impact from that darkened his vision entirely, his head seeming to float off without the rest of his body, everything comfortably weightless.

"Donnie! Donnie, wake up!" Don's vision cleared to find his father and his brother kneeling over him, unnervingly close. He frowned and moved to sit up, but the shooting pain in his head combined with the hand on his chest convinced him that the floor really wasn't all that uncomfortable. He blinked at them.

"Are you okay? Can you hear me?" Alan asked, almost panicked. He brushed a hand across Don's forehead once, then laid his hand there a second time. Don was grateful; his hand was cool and felt surprisingly good.

"Yeah," Don grunted.

"What happened?" Charlie demanded. "Did you trip? Hit your head?"

"I don't think so," Don mumbled. "I got dizzy for a minute and then I – hey, do you have my phone?"

"What do you need your phone for?" Alan asked, clearly not satisfied with Don's answer.

"I need to see if work called, we had that case…" Don trailed off as his father gave him a stern look.

"You are not working today," Alan intoned. "You are going to let us help you up and out to the car, and we are going to get you checked out by a doctor."

"Dad, I'm fine," Don protested.

"You passed out and then hit your head," Charlie said. "You fell down the stairs, Don."

"But, I –"

"No buts!" Alan said decisively. "You're going and that's that."

Don continued to grumble and gripe, but in the end his head did hurt quite a bit and he didn't think he was quite up to fighting off the two of them, even the obvious advantage of FBI training, so he allowed them to help him to his feat, half-carry him out to the car and drive to the hospital. He did, however, coax Charlie into calling his team to make sure everything was okay, so that Don would be able to relax without worry.

So all in all, he would call it a win.

* * *

Alan sat uncomfortably in the waiting room of the local emergency center almost two hours later. The chairs were stiff and scarcely padded, the room was air-conditioned to a point somewhere between the temperature of a refrigerator and a freezer, and his arm was asleep, due to the weight of his son sleeping soundly on his shoulder.

At first, he had attempted to keep Don awake, but with the incredible sleep debt his son had racked up – which, when he mentioned it to Charlie was immediately calculated within a comfortable margin of error – getting Don to sit still, relax, and remain conscious had proved impossible. So he now sat, one arm across Don's shoulders, with Don's head resting in the curve between his shoulder and his neck, just heavy enough to cut off blood flow. Both he and Charlie had tossed their jackets over Don, in addition to the blanket he was already wearing, but Don was still shivering from the fever.

"Maybe we should have just gone to a clinic instead," Charlie said, tossing a beat up magazine back onto the heap in front of him.

"I have a feeling they would have sent us here anyway," Alan said softly. "They'll probably want to give him an IV, to hydrate him."

Charlie nodded. "You're probably right. I'm going to go call Amita and ask her to post a sign for my students cancelling class." He stood up and walked away, pulling his phone from his pocket as he went.

Alan rested his cheek in Don's hair, feeling the heat radiating from his son, taking both comfort and worry from it in the chilly room. He sighed and let his eyes drift closed.

He was awakened abruptly by a call of "Eppes?"

"Yes, right here!" he called. Reaching across with his good arm, he nudged Don gently to wake him. Don blinked his eyes open, confused, but quickly relinquished the jackets and blanket to follow the nurse back. Alan followed on her heels.

"You know, I've been going to the doctor by myself for a while now, Dad," Don commented, tone light.

"I just want to make sure he gets the whole story." Alan kept his tone light too, but he could see Don understood that an argument would not be worthwhile in this case.

"We'll just have you sit on the table here," the nurse said. "I'm going to just do a few routine things and the doctor will be in shortly, okay?" Don sat quietly, allowing his pulse and blood pressure to be taken, answering questions and nodding in the right places.

The nurse drew the curtain around them as she left, and Don sighed loudly and lay back on the table, legs dangling off the end. Alan considered trying to start a conversation, but quickly noticed Don's eyes had once again drifted shut, so he settled himself in the chair to wait.

Not ten minutes later, a young, dark-haired man in a white coat parted the curtain and introduced himself as Dr. Metzger.

"So, Mr. –" he broke off as he checked the chart again. "I'm sorry, Agent Eppes. It says here you took a spill down the stairs?"

Don quickly outlined the fall, concluding with "I think I hit my head, so we thought I should get checked out."

"Good idea," Dr. Metzger agreed. "Always better to be sure."

"Actually, doctor," Alan broke in. "That's not the only reason we're here."

"Oh?" The doctor raised his eyebrows and looked back to Don, who shifted uncomfortably.

"Well, I've been a little…under the weather, recently," Don mumbled. Don went on to explain, with periodic interjections from Alan, the vomiting, the hacking cough, the fever and lightheadedness, the fatigue, lack of sleep and general weakness. Dr. Metzger nodded, listened attentively, and took occasional notes. As he spoke, Don's voice became weaker and hoarser until finally, like punctuation to his tale, he broke into a fit of coughing which Dr. Metzger listened to for a moment with a stethoscope before patting Don's back gently and offering him a cup of water, which Don, when he was able to wheeze out an answer, declined.

Dr. Metzger sat back down and regarded Don thoughtfully. "Well, I don't want to say too much yet," he said finally. "I'm going to order some chest X-rays and blood work. Your head is fine, you didn't hit it too hard. But, my best guess would be that you've been running yourself into the ground lately and it finally caught up with you. Your weakened immune system made you even more susceptible to the flu –" at this, Don shot a triumphant look at Alan, to which Dr. Metzger raised his eyebrows before continuing, "and complications arose from that flu when you didn't slow down and let your body fight it off."

"Complications?" Alan asked, concerned.

"Pneumonia," the doctor supplied. At Alan's reaction, he quickly added, "Mild pneumonia that will resolve easily with a little rest and some good strong antibiotics. We'll do the X-rays to confirm, but this is pretty textbook."

"And the fall?" Alan asked.

"Low blood pressure." Dr. Metzger looked back at Don. "You are severely dehydrated. I'm going to start an IV to help get some fluids in you, and I'm going to give you an anti-emetic, to help with the nausea. There's not a lot I can do for just regular old flu, but if we get you hydrated again and you relax and give your body time to heal, you'll be good as new soon."

Don nodded, exhaustion evident. Dr. Metzger continued. "You're in good shape, Agent Eppes. You should bounce back quickly. But you need to take it easy. None of this running off to fight terror and save lives. Not that we don't appreciate it," he added, with a smile. "Just listen to your body. It knows what it needs."

Don had the good sense to look a little sheepish. "Sorry, doc."

"No problem. I can't complain too much, can I? I like my life just as much as the next guy." He stepped outside the curtain for a moment, returning with a bag of yellow fluid and a needle. He expertly inserted the IV, hung the bag and turned to Don once more. "This is a banana bag – fluids and vitamins all in one neat package. We're going to leave this in while the nurse takes you for X-rays, and then we'll see about letting you go home, okay?"

"That would be great," Don agreed. Dr. Metzger shook his hand, and then Alan's before leaving them once more.

Alan looked at his son, who refused to meet his gaze. After a long moment, he finally said, "You and Charlie both have always loved your work. And you've always been so talented. And while I love that you love your work, I'd love it even more if you knew when to stop working."

Don nodded, but cast a knowingly look and the hint of a smile at his father. "Guess Charlie and I take after the other workaholic in our family."

"Yes, you got it from your mother," Alan said, deliberately misunderstanding, with a small smile.


	10. Chapter 10

**Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed**

**Chapter Ten**

Don craned his neck uncomfortably to peer over the doctor's shoulder at the X-ray, feeling a little ridiculous since he lacked the necessary degree to evaluate what he was looking at. The doctor caught him looking, smiled, stepped to one side and pointed.

"See here? Your lungs aren't supposed to look like that. You've got fluid in them, which is why you're having such a hard time breathing and you keep coughing and scaring your poor father."

Don nodded, the visual making his urge to cough even stronger. His father had left during the X-ray, since they gave Don's curtained area to another patient, for which Don was somewhat relieved. Much as he loved his father, having his parent and his doctor gang up on him when he was this miserable just didn't strike him as fair.

The doctor pulled up a chair and sat across from Don. "I don't want to be the bad guy here, Agent Eppes," he began, and Don cringed. Here came the lecture. "But very few people would let things get this bad before they went to a doctor. You have a fever of 103, your blood pressure was worryingly low, and you are quite clearly miserable. But I hear from your father that you were at work less than twelve hours ago. Level with me."

Don finally allowed himself to break into a fit of coughing, purposefully postponing answering until he could come up with a reasonable explanation. When he finally caught his breath, he said briefly "there was a threat of terrorism that couldn't really be delayed."

"Prior to that. You mentioned you haven't been sleeping. How much sleep would you estimate you get each night?"

"I don't know, three, maybe four hours?" Don admitted. "Things have been," he paused, searching for a word to describe the things that kept him lying awake at night though his exhaustion was overwhelming. "Hectic."

"How so?"

Don cringed again. This guy was not going to let it go. "Well, my team fell apart. And when we put it back together, there were a lot of kinks to work out. I broke up with my girlfriend. And we've had a rough caseload lately."

The doctor nodded sympathetically. "I can see how any one of those things could keep you up." He paused, his demeanor becoming slightly less formal. "I'm not looking to pry into your personal life, Agent Eppes. I just want to help you. Now, I'm not one to give people pills for every little thing, but if you're interested, I can write you a prescription for something to help you sleep. This would be very, very temporary. Just long enough for you to get rested up and back on your feet. You've been running yourself into the ground, and even a healthy young guy like you is going to feel the effects at some point. Is that something you're interested in?"

Don shook his head. "I'm not one to take a pill for most things either," he said.

Dr. Metzger nodded approvingly. "You didn't seem like the type. However, I'm about to give you some pills you have to take. I'm giving you a prescription for antibiotics. You have to take it every day, until you run out. Don't just stop when you feel better, or it could come back even worse, okay?" At Don's tired nod, he continued, "Good. We've given you IV fluids and medication here. You can take Tylenol to help reduce your fever and to help with some of that achiness you've been experiencing."

Don nodded again and moved to stand up.

"Whoa there," Dr. Metzger admonished. "I've got one more prescription for you."

Don raised his eyebrows, waiting.

"Take a minimum of three days off work. Rest, relax. Push fluids. And let your family take care of you. I mean it."

Don took the note from the doctor, shook his hand, and mumbled something vaguely affirmative sounding, before turning to go.

"Agent Eppes?"

"Doctor?"

"What you do…I'm very grateful," Dr. Metzger said sincerely. "You do a great service to all of us. But please, keep in mind, even FBI agents get sick. And even heroes have the right to heal."

* * *

Never one to pass up an opportunity to do math, Charlie had done the calculations. It took him most of a day, a few minutes here or there between bringing Don soup or sitting with him to watch the Stanley Cup. He didn't dare let himself get too involved in the work, lest he not hear Don call for him – which Don had yet to do, because, as always, Don was the older brother and he did not want or need help from anyone. This being the case, Charlie was forced to check on Don fairly frequently. Though "forced," he would admit might be a bit of a stretch, since no one had asked or ordered him to do anything. But he did feel obligated, despite the fact that Don had been in pretty much the same spot on the couch under a heap of blankets, remote poised and prepared for commercial breaks, since they arrived home from the hospital. Not to mention the fact that Alan was checking on Don as much as Charlie was, if not more, to find mostly the same thing. Don either flipped through channels, was riveted by hockey, or slept for most of the day. Charlie would calculate exactly how much, but if he were being quite honest, some numbers just aren't interesting enough to bother with.

But between each of these trips, Charlie snuck out to the garage to scribble a few figures on his chalkboards, the comforting grate of chalk soothing his nerves. He let the worry seep into the quiet scratching, all the anxiety about Don replaced by the story of the numbers. After all, Don was taking his medication without complaint, resting fairly quietly, and he had only been caught calling work twice. So far. All was slowly righting itself. Charlie could afford to spend some time with the numbers.

Charlie began his calculations with an extrapolation of his observed data to figure a rough estimate of how many cases Don had covered in his FBI career. And with a few basic algorithms covering risk factors, results, averages and a few other basic statistics, the rest was just solving.

According to the math, Charlie could safely say that Don had saved more millions of lives. The last case alone was a few million. And if Don wanted to get technical and say he hadn't done it on his own, Charlie was ready with figures on how much of this was a direct result of Don and his influence, and he would give Don credit for just that percentage. Either way, a few million lives was well within the range of standard error, and even on the low side of that range.

Charlie, of course, did not stop there, but continued to analyze, considering how many times Don had laid his life on the line for someone else. And the number was staggering.

Don putting himself first was a statistical anomaly. He was self-sacrificing to what Charlie would usually call "almost a fault," but the last few days were enough to convince him that the almost was an unjust kindness. Don was never the type to accept accolades, but Charlie was sure even Don wouldn't argue with the numbers.

Don was a hero, plain and simple. As plain as day, as obvious as a differential equation, in Charlie's mind, was the fact that his brother was an unsung hero. Now that he had proven it, there were only two things he had to do. The first was to convince Don that this was the case. He doubted that would ever happen – his brother was something of an immovable object and even head to head with unstoppable forces he typically got his way. Charlie would settle for Don accepting that he was important, that what he did was just as great, if not greater, than what Charlie did.

The second would be even tougher. Charlie somehow had to convince Don that no matter how heroic he might be, no matter how many lives he saved and how many were left to save, his own was just as important as any of theirs. That Don deserved more than just a life of serving everyone else, working quietly in the background where most people would never hear his name, all to ensure their lives went smoothly. That he could have more than just his work. That he was more than just an agent. That even heroes have the right to dream.

**~The End~**

**Author's Note: Thank you all so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed it, and I'd love it if you dropped me a line and let me know what you think. This was my first Numb3rs story, and it was mostly for the purpose of me getting a handle on some of the characters (I hope). I know it probably feels a little bit unresolved, but that is mostly because I am leaving things a little open for my next story, which is already in the works, though none has been posted yet. It wouldn't be fun if Don resolved all his issues already, right? Anyways, thank you so much for reading and letting me know what you think! ~procrastin8or951**


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